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Steam selling Strategy Guides

dextronaut

Grizzled Veteran
Jun 26, 2009
2,424
127
Pacific Northwest
i havnt seen any topics about this on here lately, but anyways - recently Steam has started to stock online strategy guides:

steamstrategy.png


as you can see, they are on sale right now for 9$, after the discount ends its $19. so what im wondering is - who is actually going to buy these when they can use Google and search for independent strategy guides and websites?
 
its way too expensive but i think its nice to see it. The ability to use the in game steam overlay to display guides is quite nice. And personally I hope that steam will perhaps expand to movies as well.

The price is too expensive but if multiple companies will offer strategy guides then I don't see why not.

why buy them though? i mean, take L4D2 for example, i typed in google, "L4D2 guide" and tons of links popped up with free walkthrus, the first link was:

http://guides.ign.com/guides/14352241/

not to mention the amount of Youtube vids. not trying to flame you, just agreeing - its way too expensive: 9$ or 19$, its still way too expensive.
 
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glad im not the only one. when i posted this i was worried ppl were going to be like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN! ITS GENIUS!"

There's a bunch of problems with this. For one, the price is just ridiculous. No one in their right mind is going to spend almost half of the money they paid for the game to get the strategy guide. And even if they did the big benefit of a Prima guide is that you can refer to it as you play the game. So a digital version is useless in that regard unless you print it, spending even more money on ink and paper. The only people who would buy such a thing are mom's thinking it's a good bonus for their kids but they generally only do that when pushed by a GameStop rep or someone similar. On Steam you don't have that so unless they start bundling the guide with games, which would be annoying as hell, I can't see anyone buying these.
 
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Look at it this way.

If you had a product that you could produce for pennies on the dollar, that there is a guaranteed market for (because there are schmucks, and schmucks do own Steam), and you could do online distribution of a freaking PDF and charge $20 for it, and people would actually buy it....

Would you not do it? It's probably costing them NOTHING to sell guides on Steam.

You can punch yourself in the face all day fretting at the ethics or the lack of spine that makes a business model like that possible...but it makes good sense for them.
 
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Look at it this way.

If you had a product that you could produce for pennies on the dollar, that there is a guaranteed market for (because there are schmucks, and schmucks do own Steam), and you could do online distribution of a freaking PDF and charge $20 for it, and people would actually buy it....

Would you not do it? It's probably costing them NOTHING to sell guides on Steam.

You can punch yourself in the face all day fretting at the ethics or the lack of spine that makes a business model like that possible...but it makes good sense for them.

If you're looking at it from Prima's point of view, sure. Valve is probably not going to make that much money though and I think it makes Steam's integrity drop by selling such blatantly useless crap. I know Valve isn't the moral video game business authority but they have total control and could choose not to sell these guides, not to sell overpriced games ($60 MW2 for example), and force Steam as the only DRM on Steam games, etc. I guess business-wise it doesn't make sense since the only people who notice these things are a very small hardcore pc gamer minority but it'd be nice if they took a stand.
 
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Sorry Amerikaner, but you're off in fantasy land on that one. Steam would be in the business of selling indie and their own games ONLY if they did things like demanding DRM get removed from any titles they sell. All the major publishers would tell Valve to go **** themselves six ways from Sunday, because none of them are going to pay to strip DRM out of their product just for Valve.

As for Prima guides....*shrug* it's a revenue stream for Valve and Prima, small though it may be. In the less-opinionated world of gaming, Prima is providing a 'legitimate' service. They have the publisher and the developer's stamp of approval, since Prima gets early access to the games they cover so they can write the guides in the first place.

(And that's the only reason anyone even gets them...because that's info immediately available as the game releases. Nevermind the fact that so many new releases are so simple and short, you don't NEED a strat guide to pwn it to being with.)

I remember the days when guides were AWESOME and useful, before the Internet made finding something out almost idiot-proof. So I look at Prima and just kind of shake my head sadly. It's getting railed twice by the Internet. One, the internet is kicking print media's ***. Two, the Internet is kicking gaming guides' asses too. So trying to make 4000% profit on strategy guides that everyone but noobs don't need by selling them on Steam...it's desperation on their part. But they have the right to try and stay solvent when the odds are almost totally against them. Sort of like people have the right to pay for something they could get for free if they were a little smarter/better informed/motivated.

And I do think there's some joy in reading a strat guide, when it's high-quality, both in presentation and in content, and the game is worthy of having a strat guide in the first place. But that doesn't happen very often any more.
 
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Sorry Amerikaner, but you're off in fantasy land on that one. Steam would be in the business of selling indie and their own games ONLY if they did things like demanding DRM get removed from any titles they sell. All the major publishers would tell Valve to go **** themselves six ways from Sunday, because none of them are going to pay to strip DRM out of their product just for Valve.

When Steam was in its infancy I would agree but not so much now. Steam is the most successful digital distribution system and publishers know this. If Valve "persuaded" them to drop the DRM because Steam already has them covered and its better for the customer they might actually listen instead of risking losing all those profits in an already established profit area. Steam is too big now for publishers to tell Valve to **** off for something so minor.
 
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Steam doesn't have a monopoly on digital downloads. Granted, they're doing better than anyone and have a large captive audience for their deals...but EA, Ubi, all these pubs have their own DDs as well. They don't have Steam's infrastructure or audience, but they don't *need* Steam.

If Valve were going to swing its nuts that hard, it would have happened already I think.
 
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Or for people who want to get the most out of their games. I've never had a strategy guide, but I know someone whose enjoyment of Zelda was greatly enhanced by one, and not just because he was stuck and the guide helped him out but because the guide was literally a guide to the game.

If I were to start playing a fighting game seriously I might even consider picking up a guide. Most fighting games are button mashers for me (notable exception: Super Smash Brothers for the N64. Loved that game, and I know I'm a cretin for liking this over "real" fighting games... but I just don't cayah!) and if a guide could help ease me into the game and help me get the intricacies of combat I can see it being of some use.

Nothing google can't provide, probably, but probably a lot more comfortable to use than a mix and match of five contradictory text-only FAQs written by some dudes.

I'm not at that point yet and I would have to get suckered into playing a fighting game seriously by people I know and like, because I'm really not into the genre on my own, and I would have to get confirmation of these people that the guide is any good, but if this is all a given and if I really enjoy the game I could see myself picking up a guide.
I would definitely get it in book-form though and not as a digital download.:p
 
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